By the Sword Divided
by SelkieShore
Summary: Based on the 1980s BBC TV costume drama, may not make a lot of sense if you don't know the show. An occasional series comprising my fan-fiction variations on each episode, not ruling out the possibility of a more major AU later on...
1. Introduction

The following will be an occasional series based around episodes of the BBC costume drama "By the Sword Divided", which I have recently re-discovered.

Set in the 1640s, the show followed the fortunes of two families, the Laceys and the Fletchers, during the period of civil war in Britain known variously - and depending largely on where in these islands you happen to be standing - as the English Civil War, the Civil Wars, or the Wars of the Three Kingdoms. In England, where this story is set, the conflict can be very VERY broadly simplified as a power struggle between an autocratic king, Charles I, and the supporters of a fledgling Parliament. Of course it was more complicated than that. Wars generally are, and civil wars more so than most.

It's probably fair to say that the TV series was domestic. It was concerned with the effects of the war on the people left behind: the women and old men, the servants whose own lives and fortunes are caught up, willy-nilly, in the affairs of their "betters", the soldiers who come and go, quite literally bringing the war home as the campaign ebbs and flows across the countryside, until in the end the Lacey family home is itself besieged. It wasn't about the great battles, and wasn't supposed to be. I loved it very much. But - and this is a reflection on my own shallow tastes, not in any way a criticism of the show - while there was _some_ sword-play and blowing stuff up, I would have loved it better still had there been more.

This, then, is my version, tweaks, twists and "what happened nexts", hopefully with a dash of added swash-buckle and yeah, possibly quite a lot of Tom getting beaten up...


	2. Re-Captured Rosebud

_Episode 1, aired as "Gather Ye Rosebuds" :_

 _In the calm days before the outbreak of war, Tom Lacey - early twenties, six foot four, blond, bonny and the heir to Arnescote Castle - arrives home wounded from the European wars, just in time for the wedding of his twin sister to his childhood friend. Meanwhile their little sister, the rebellious, somewhat melodramatic teen Lucinda, refuses the marriage which has been arranged for_ her _, to the aristocratic Lord Edward Ferrar, and "runs away". Tom subsequently discovers her hiding in the chapel crypt. I always thought that could have ended a bit more adventurously..._

 _... I kept the Tom in the bath scene though. Why wouldn't you?_ ;)

* * *

 **RE-CAPTURED ROSEBUD**

1640

Tom leaned back, both elbows resting on the rim of the bath-tub, and wondered drowsily when he had ever felt quite so blissfully content. For three years, any opportunity to wash at all had been luxury enough. To be doing so in warm water, in a tub so vast that even he, tall as he was, could sit comfortably cross-legged in it, with a roaring fire in the grate and a flagon of good Rhenish within easy reach on the floor - such was a pleasure beyond anything he could have imagined in the long weeks of traveling, still less in the years of war before them. He sighed happily. It was good to be home, for a few months at least: to rest, and heal, and to see his friend and sister wed, and maybe help with the harvest, and hunt the October fields on Jasper - for the horse would be fit too, by then, on the sweet English summer's grass... After that, well, he'd see...

He had fallen asleep. Tired as he was, he was awake again on the instant as the door latch lifted, and was groping on the floor beside the tub for his sword. It was the first time in three years that he had fallen asleep out of reach of a sword. But it was only Anne with the supper tray. Without thinking, because the water had gone cold and there was a crick in his neck, he stood up and stretched. There was no coy modesty in the army, and "camp manners" was just another way of saying, no manners at all. "Throw us a towel?" he suggested.

Anne, though, reacted with alacrity, and turned blushing away. She reached blindly at arms length behind her to offer him the towel, so that he too felt suddenly embarrassed. Not because he was naked, but because he had made an uncouth soldier's blunder, forgetting in his sleepy sense of well-being how decent people behaved. To Goodwife Margaret or one of the maids he would probably have apologised. But this was Anne, so -

"Oh for God's sake," he said grumpily, "You've seen it all before. A few years ago Goodwife Margaret would have had you in there with me - crying when I splashed soap in your eyes."

"It was you who cried, as I recall. Now, however, since we are not children," Anne spoke primly, "and I at least am not a mannerless trooper of horse, either - " reading his own thoughts back to him as always, damn it... " - such shameful parts should be covered."

But at that her brother was laughing uproariously. "Shameful parts! It was you who walked on on me, woman." He was starting to dress, taking his time over it out of sheer Lacey stubbornness, while Anne stood resolutely facing the other way with her chin in the air. Conversationally he asked, "Is John ashamed of his parts, then?" - and before she could draw outraged breath to yell: "Alright. Joke. But it's a fine canting Puritan he's become, Lass, and that you can't deny."

He had touched a nerve. "He's a respectable, decent, god-fearing man who speaks out for what he believes in, if that's what you mean," Anne snapped back, and Tom chuckled.

"Aha. Good. I do believe you love him." He turned to pick up his shirt, paused, and then said what had been on his mind ever since the messenger had first found him with her message. "And does he love you?"

"What? Why? Yes, I think so. No, I know so. Why?"

"I've known John Fletcher since we were boys. I'd prefer not to have to kill him," said Tom, with a seriousness which was perhaps not entirely a mockery. "And... he's known you, too, since you were a fresh bloomed girl. It seems to have taken him a long time to get round to it, that's all... It's a canny match for that scheming father of his."

"Oh! You - "

When she was feeling fair-minded and secure, which in all honesty was most of the time, Anne had a certain affection for her future father-in-law. Sir Austin Fletcher was a bluff, shrewd headed businessman, who had risen from humble stock to make a fortune in the new trade with the Americas. He had earned and bought his knighthood in equal measure, and looked now to wed his way into the gentry through the marriage of his son, whom he had expensively educated to a gentlemanly polish quite lacking in Sir Austin's own generation. Just as Anne's father, Sir Martin, hoped to advance his own family higher still by marrying Lucinda to Lord Edward Ferrar. And nor were the Fletchers the only party to benefit, for while they might envy the Laceys' centuries of aristocratic breeding, their coffers, if the truth were told, weighed somewhat heavier than Sir Martin's, and Arnescote would profit financially by the match. Anne understood all of that. She was no green girl with her head full of minstrel's tales - she was no Lucinda - and she appreciated that her marriage was in large measure a business transaction.

But it was a love match too, and Tom had no right to doubt that.

Indignation spun her round to face him at the very moment that Tom, now modestly breeched, was half-turned away from her to reach for his shirt. "I knew you'd think that. You're such a pig. You're - " Her voice changed abruptly. "Tom..."

"Hmm?" He turned back to look at her, and her eyes dilated.

"Your wound, Tom. It - it goes nearly all the way round."

Tom grinned awkwardly. "Not really. It felt like it might do, at the time." He pulled the shirt on quickly, not caring that his back was still damp. "I'm alright."

But Anne shook her head, feeling the stout oaken floorboards tilting away from her like the deck of a ship. She had been imagining a sword cut as a neat, pink line on his skin, maybe even as somewhat dashing. Tom looked as if he had been hacked almost in two.

"I knew," she whispered. "When it happened. I woke up screaming. I had such a pain in my belly - Goodwife Margaret wanted to send for the apothecary. But then it went away. Quite suddenly, it just - went. Why, Tom?"

"Oh, I probably fainted," said Tom. What the devil, he thought, watching her wince. He was allowed to be callous - it was his damn' stomach.

"No, I meant, why do we... Oh Tom, is it witchcraft?"

Spoken like a Puritan indeed. "Well, if it is, I suppose they could save on the cost of firewood and only burn one of us. I nominate you." That brought a wavering smile. "It's a trick Nature plays on twins, sometimes, that's all. But I'm not a mind-reader. If I'm to know all the gossip of the last three years you'll have to tell me." He sloshed wine into two tankards, waved at the cushioned settle beside the hearth. "Sit down. Drink. Eat. Tell me the news - tell me about this bright young blade of Lucinda's - "

Later, he remembered how his doubts about the Fletchers had been diverted. But he loved his sister, and he wanted to think the best of John, and he was glad that the talk had turned, unanswered, before it could spoil his home-coming.

It was not Anne, after all, who was destined to do that...

* * *

It was still very dark when Tom, booted and spurred and with his sword-belt over his shoulder in answer to a summons from his father, came clattering down the stable-yard steps into the kind of scene he thought he had left behind when he quit the army. Men and horses were pushing to and fro, orders were shouted, and the yard seemed to seeth with torches and smoky horse-breath in the cold air. Every able-bodied man on the Estate must be present, and most of the women.

Sir Martin was at the foot of the steps with Cropper, his steward, and Tom's own servant Will Saltmarsh. He was frowning hard - evidently at something Will had just said, for the latter was touching his hat and half bowing, apologetic but holding firm on whatever it was. Then Sir Martin saw Tom and nodded in curt approval. "Sorry, Boy. Your sister - " he glanced sideways, and Tom saw Anne, heavily cloaked and watching them with a mutinous expression from under the lee of the kitchen wall, " - said I ought to let you sleep. But I need every man we have."

Tom grinned. "I'm not made of spun glass, Father. What's happened?"

Sir Martin swore. "Lucinda's run off. Doesn't want to marry young Ferrar, they tell me! Damn the women. Damn 'em all."

"In the middle of the night?" Tom's gaze went involuntarily to the utter blackness beyond the castle walls. Despite the cold, there was no clear, frost-sharp sky tonight, no glittering stars. A leaden cloud blotted out the moonlight, as effectively as if the world had been plunged into a game-keeper's sack. As he dragged his attention back to his father, Tom's eyes met Will's, recognising the same worry on his servant's face as he felt himself. A wolf's night, they would have called it in the Low Countries. Even here in England, if ever there could be a _good_ night for a young girl to be riding alone in the dark, this was not it. Not all wolves ran on four feet. "Surely she's only hiding? Are they searching the house?"

"Goodwife Margaret can see to that. But Tom - Calypso is gone."

That was all Tom needed to hear. Calypso - Lucinda's favourite mare, and the fastest horse in the stable after Sir Martin's own great charger, Hector, whom no-one else was permitted to touch.

"She took her new gown: purple damask, I'm told, Sir, and very saleable," Cropper was saying. As steward it was his business to know the value of such things. "Also some of your late mother's jewellery. And Mistress Dumfry tells me some bread and a pie are gone from the - "

Tom was not listening. He was already pushing his way into the crowd, tugging the sword-belt into place as he went.

"Tom!" Sir Martin shouted after him. "Your own horse is lame, William tells me." Tom waited, impatient. There were plenty of horses he could take. None of them would catch the one on which his little sister was riding further into who knew what dangers with every moment that they wasted here talking. Sir Martin held his gaze. "Take Hector."

* * *

Quartering the countryside to hunt down a fugitive was no new task for Tom. Swiftly he divided the men into patrols, set them to searching the woods and fields. But he himself took the road. If Lucinda were merely hiding, gone to ground somewhere in order to prove her point, then Tom did not delude himself : men like Jackman and Skinner the gamekeepers stood a better chance of discovering here than he did. If, on the other hand, the foolish child really had run away, if she were even now putting frantic distance between herself and Arnescote Castle - and no-one knew how long she had been gone - well then, it stood to reason she would have gone further, faster, on the road than in any other direction. So that was where Hector's speed and stamina would be of most use.

And then there was the risk of misadventure. In the woods, the greatest danger was from a fall. That was by far the likeliest outcome of this whole escapade, and it chilled Tom's stomach to think of, for he was too good a horseman himself not to take seriously the potentially horrific consequences of ditch and thrusting hedge, and the stifling blackness under the trees. But on the road, the greatest threat was from men. And _that_ was where Tom would be of most use.

She was not on the mile-long drive which connected Arnescote with the main road to Swinford. They covered the distance thoroughly, though at a fine pace, the great grey horse wheeling neatly as Tom criss-crossed the track, checking the possible cover on either side of it. At the turning beneath the empty gallows they paused, Tom thinking. He had no insight into his younger sister's mind, as he had into Anne's. Lucinda was a stranger to him. But he thought it was unlikely she would have made for the local market town of Swinford, a place where she would be all to readily recognised and escorted home. She was a Lacey, high-spirited and no doubt flown with her own daring and sense of adventure... And after a moment Tom turned Hector's head towards London.

Some miles later the rain started: a chill, sleeting rain which drove straight to the bone through doublet and buff-coat and good woollen riding cloak all, and turned the road underfoot to slithering treachery. Still they kept on, though Tom was certain now that Lucinda, if she had come this way at all, had too good a start on them to be over-taken. Far more likely she had gone across country after all, and Jackman had found her an hour since, nursing a broken leg in a ditch. But it could not be long now until dawn, and he set that as his deadline: if he had not found her by day-break, he would turn back.

He was cold, wet and foul-tempered by the time the first dull light showed in the east, and Hector was starting to plod. It was a miserable morning. The day revealed nothing but the rain slanting thicker than ever, and sodden fields on either side of the road where deep puddles reflected back an iron-hard sky. For Tom, the hot bath and soft bed of the evening might never have happened. They had been a dream to lull his defences before this morning's return to normality: frozen mud to the eyeballs as bad as Flanders. And then he saw the inn.

It was a poor-looking place, but it was a roof. Perhaps someone there would know if Lucinda had passed this way - Calypso was a horse men would remember, though that thought brought an additional worry to twist Tom's aching belly. At the very least, please God, he could get a tankard of something warm inside him before turning for home.

But the inn was in darkness. Close to, it was not so much an inn as a hovel, the shutters hanging broken from the dead windows, and for a moment he wondered if the place were abandoned. But the stench from the midden over-flowing half across the yard was fresh enough, and as he dropped from the saddle a man appeared, rubbing his eyes, in the door of the shabby stables. An ostler then, for he stumped forward to take Hector's bridle, running an approving eye over the horse as he did so, and a suspicious one over Tom.

"Nah then, Sir," he said, yawning, "You're up and about early - or maybe you're late going to bed?" He leered. It was not a friendly leer. "You want to be careful, you do. Too many footpads and 'ighwaymen around these days."

"Indeed?" Tom stretched, following as the man led Hector into the stable. If this weather continued, he thought sourly, he would soon begin to rust in the joints like ill-cared for armour - a feeling which vanished between one creaking step and the next as he crossed the threshold. The stable had no stalls, of course, but a string of quite astonishingly fine quality horses were tied to a crude partition running the length of the building. At the sight of Hector, the mare at the end nearest the door gave a soft, welcoming nicker. She was Calypso.

Tom patted her nose. "Pretty little beast," he remarked. "Is the owner inside?"

The ostler glared at him. "And why would you want to know that? Sir."

"I know her," Tom said. "Lady Margaret Warenne. If she's here I should pay my respects."

"No you don't, Sir, begging yer pardon. Not unless Lady Margaret's a great lanky feller as tall as you are with a black beard to her waist. 'Cos that's who rode in on this 'un, and that's who'll be spiking yer guts for you if you lay yer thieving hands on his mare." The ostler had let go of Hector, who stood quietly. Without looking round, he put his hand unerringly on the pitchfork which leaned casually against the stable wall. "Nah then, Sir, I'll tell you plain. You comes in 'ere at this ungodly hour, with yer fancy sword and yer busted-down soldier-boy swagger and yer 'orse what you can't afford - and I ain't asking question about that, Sir, 'deed I ain't. But I don't care for you. I don't care for the interest you takes in another man's 'orse, and I don't care for yer money, neither. Off you go, Sir. This 'ere's a respectable 'ouse."

If he had not been sick with worry at the news that a stranger had been riding his sister's horse, Tom would laughed aloud. To be taken for a highwayman himself - albeit an unwanted free-lance rival, if this place was what he thought it was - was undoubtedly a compliment of sorts. But... where the hell was Lucinda?

He forced himself to look querulously at the pitchfork. Then he shrugged, "My mistake", and he began to lead Hector away. His great fear was that the man would try to stop him taking the horse, and he was tensed for a challenge or even a bullet as he swung into the saddle. But there was neither, and he did not look back as they splashed through the widening pools of liquid filth in the inn-yard, and back onto the road.

It was lighter now. Some way from the inn a small tangle of trees stood like forlorn sticks in the rain, and Tom made certain he was hidden from view behind them before he turned Hector off the road and doubled back. Leaving the horse tethered out of sight, he crept to the edge of the thicket and peered into the strengthening grey light. He could see the inn clearly from here.

He had been resigned to a long wait, given the hour and the weather, but after a while he saw Calypso come out of the yard. Even through the rain he could see that her rider wore a black beard cut unfashionably thick. He was tall, as the ostler had said, and would ride heavy - which given that Calypso was now fresh and Hector anything but, could only be good news if it came to a chase. Tom's lips peeled back in an utterly humourless grin, an expression few of his family or servants would have recognised as his, and he loosened his sword in the scabbard.

But something else was happening. Another rider had come out of the inn, and he and Blackbeard were spoke earnestly together for a moment. Then Blackbeard dragged something out of his saddle-bag and handed it to the other man, who stowed it somewhere about his own luggage and made off in the direction of Swinford. Tom took a steadying breath. The thing had made a vivid splash of colour in the grey morning, and although he had not recognised it, and would not have expected to, he felt certain Anne or Goodwife Margaret would have known it at once. Even that old woman, Cropper, whose words came back to Tom now. Lucinda's new gown - purple something.

His sister was alive. Taken by highwaymen. And unless Tom was very much mistaken, a messenger had just been dispatched to Arnescote with a fragment torn from her skirt, to demand a ransom.

* * *

Tom's intention had been to jump the man the moment he was out of sight of the inn. Now, he changed his plan. He drew back, further into the trees as Calypso passed. Then he unfastened his dark riding cloak and let it fall, followed by his hat. It was a pity about the hat, since without it the rain ran into his eyes - but he was a man in a pale buff-coat now, riding a grey horse in the mist, and the rain muffled the sound of hooves as he headed Hector carefully back to the road...

It was flat, open country beyond the inn, and despite the weather he found he could follow Calypso from some distance behind her. After perhaps a mile Blackbeard turned off the road and headed across a ploughed field, then down a shallow, scrubby slope to where a bloated stream surged past an abandoned mill. More horses were tethered in the lee of one tumble-down wall.

Waiting behind a dripping bramble bush at a distance of two hundred yards, Tom saw four men come out of the mill. In their midst, a slight, yellow-headed figure in boy's doublet and breeches, with her hands held behind her as if they were tied, and one of the ruffians tugging at her arm, was Lucinda. Blackbeard had not even dismounted, and it was clear that with the ransom demand on its way the gang were now de-camping to another hide-out.

Tom measured the ground carefully, wondered whether to waste time loading a pistol which would probably misfire anyway, and decided against it. He patted Hector's neck. "Well, old lad." The big horse had done well so far. He had lived his days as a country squire's favourite hunter, but " - You were bred for it," said Tom softly, "Let's see if you can do it."

He nudged the horse into a trot. Then as the little knot of riders at the foot of the slope turned towards them, staring faces numb for a moment only and then shouting - Tom dug in his heels, and Hector charged.

Three of the five were already in the saddle, Blackbeard of course among them. He and the foremost of his companions put spurs to their horses and converged, yelling, on Tom, one on each side of Hector's plunging downward path. But Tom's sword came round in a cold arc and sliced Blackbeard's head from his body. Calypso screamed. The momentum swept the sword into a clanging parry as the second man struck, and then Hector without breaking stride was past them both and Tom was wheeling him on a sixpence and coming back. His back-hand bit deep into the robber's arm below the shoulder and the man dropped his sword, reeling in the saddle, as Hector completed the turn and reared up, flailing, to meet the third horse and rider as they crashed into him. Tom parried blindly, almost punching this man's sword out of the way with his hilt, and the force of the blow half-unseated his enemy: as the embattled horses reared a second time he was thrown and fell dazed, and Tom turned his attention to the foot men.

In fact, one of them was already no longer afoot. The attack had taken so little time that the fourth man had run to his horse from the door of the mill as Tom charged, and was only just in the saddle as the third of his companions fell. But he was not interested in joining them. As Tom faced him he fairly screamed at his horse and fled.

In the same instant there was a puff of smoke in the damp air and the last man bellowed a curse. His shot at Tom had mis-fired, and he fumbled with his pistol in rising panic, learning too late the hard lesson that the King of Sweden had so recently taught the armies of Europe, Prince Rupert of the Rhine and Tom Lacey among them. You only get one shot at a charging horse.

Tom aimed for the gun not the wrist and knocked it clattering to the ground from the man's grasp, and as he wheeled Hector round for the second pass the last of the highwaymen dropped to his knees in surrender and lifted his hands.

Lucinda stood flattened against the wall of the mill, her eyes round and staring as Tom slipped from the saddle and put his sword at the man's throat. Behind them there was a frenzied neighing and a thud as the man with the wounded arm was dislodged by his blood-maddened mount and landed fainting in the mud. And then no sound more but the thunder of the stream.

* * *

Lucinda watched sullenly while Tom tightened the last knot and came out of the mill, bolting the door on the three surviving highwaymen. They were all bound hand and foot. He wondered briefly if their companion, the man who had run, would find the courage to creep back and release them before the arrival of the constable and his men whom Tom would alert in Swinford. Then he decided he didn't care. He gave his sister a weary smile, rain and blood - Blackbeard's - streaking the side of his face.

"You're not taking me back," she said. "I'll not go."

"Where will you go then? To London? To seek your fame and fortune?" She glowered at his tone and he jerked his head at the door of the mill, amused in spite of everything with wry, soldier's humour. She was his little sister, and she was being ridiculous. "What about them? They're not the only footpads you'll meet on the way. The next ones could kill you."

"Let them." Lucinda struck a pose. "I'd rather die from a pistol ball than a broken heart, in a marriage to a man I do not love. _You_ 'll kill me if you take me back. You will, Tom. As surely as if you stabbed me with your sword." She tugged at the neck of her boy's doublet, exposing the nervous, too-rapid pulse in her throat. "Well go on then, Brother - strike!"

"I already killed one man this morning." Tom's ability to see the funny side had faded abruptly. As the reaction set in he was beginning to feel not far short of exhausted - it was infuriating how easily he seemed to get tired these days, though his wound was long healed - and whilst he had no regrets whatsoever about ridding the world of Blackbeard or any other highway robber, this was England, damn it. Skirmish and sudden death before breakfast was something he thought he had left behind in the Low Countries.

"Oh!" Lucinda shot one horrified glance at Blackbeard's headless corpse. Then she flung herself shaking into Tom's arms.

He patted her shoulder, made, awkwardly, the right kind of soothing noises, and somewhat to his dismay found himself listening to the whole tearful story: how she had met Edward Ferrar at a masked ball, and his father had approached Sir Martin within five weeks. "Though how he could tell he loved me when I was wearing a mask...!" she wailed, which had Tom struggling to hide a smile again.

"Lucy - I'm trying to understand, Lass, but I don't. You know Father loves you dearly. He'd never wed you where he didn't think you'd be happy, and he's an excellent judge of men. Now if this fine lord were old and gouty - but he's, what, nineteen? The perfect age for you, and he's not a bad looking fellow, is he? Anne seems to think you've made a good match."

"Anne! Do you think I share _Anne_ 's ideas of what makes a man? When she's settling for a - "

"Have a care, child. You are speaking of my best friend" - wondering as he said it whether that were still true, because three years of war had forged other bonds, which John could never share. At any rate, his oldest friend.

"John's changed," Lucinda said, sniffing. "Don't take me home."

"Sweetling, you know I must. They'll be worried - the messenger will be there by now with that piece of your gown - "

"What?" she broke away from him then, offended and blazing. "Give me credit for some good sense! I didn't tell them you who I _am_ , clodpole!" She stuck her chin in the air, well pleased with herself. "I said my name was Lucy Protheroe and my father was a merchant-venturer in Bristol."

"There you are then," said Tom. "That wasn't good sense - what do you suppose would have happened when they found you out? - but it _was_ courageous. You're a true Lacey. Remember all those soldierly ancestors? It's always been our greatest virtue, our courage. Only..." She preened slightly at that, and Tom shook his head, amused and saddened - and _tired_ , god damn it - all at the same time. No, he did not know Lucinda the way he knew Anne. But despite her airs and the trouble she was causing, he was beginning to like her. He hoped she would have the decency not to hate him. "Only you're not showing it now, are you? You're running away."

Lucinda looked away. Afterwards, neither of them could have said how long she stood there, staring into the rain without seeing it, while Tom waited in silence and tried not to let himself huddle forward over the growing chill in his belly, while Blackbeard's blood leached away into the mud from the stump of his neck, and the grey daylight strengthened. Perhaps it was only a few seconds. When she faced Tom again, the rain on her face made it impossible to tell if she were crying.

She drew herself up like the Queen of Scots going to the block - or tried to, in mud-caked breeches and with the wet hair plastered to the side of her face - and held out a hand. Tom took it. "You're my executioner," she said.

* * *

The household came spilling out as they rode into the courtyard. Sir Martin was at the head of the charge, but he took only three or four long strides through the door before pulling himself up short at the top of the steps, mindful of his dignity, and Goodwife Margaret bustled past him like a furious hen to all but drag Lucinda from the saddle.

Really, the child was insufferable. She stood bearing Margaret's assault in part like a martyr, in part like a warrior queen, with no hint of repentance from either, so that Sir Martin - who had wanted to kiss her - now wanted to smack her instead. And what the devil was wrong with young Ferrar, anyway?

Children! Sir Martin shook his head. Large families were a sign of God's favour, he knew. He was aware that many of his neighbours considered it odd, for no other reason than that, that he had never re-married. But for certain these three of his were enough. Lucinda apparently thought she was playing the role of one of Will Shakespeare's tragic heroines - a woman on the stage, ha! Anne, relief turned to fury, was screaming into her sister's face, railing, with some justification, that Lucinda was ruining her wedding day. Tom had just slithered from Hector's back in a manner which suggested he would have gone on slithering, into a heap on the stable-yard cobbles, if not for Will Saltmarsh's steadying hand beneath his elbow...

One needed nursing, one needed thrashing, and the guests for the other one's wedding would be arriving inside of three hours.

"What a brood," said Sir Martin.

But Nathaniel Cropper, his steward, and the man who knew him better than any, standing in his usual place at Sir Martin's back, heard that he said it with pride.


End file.
